Conventionally, a printing device such as a facsimile machine or a printer has a sheet cassette to accommodate stacked sheets for printing. As shown in FIG. 1A, the sheet cassette 200 includes a sheet tray 220 for accommodating stacked sheets and a cover 230 for covering a part of an open upper portion of the tray 220. The sheet tray 220 is generally provided with a sheet indicator 240 indicating the remaining amount of sheets therein. The sheet indicator 240 has a pointer 242a provided in a front side of the sheet tray 220. As shown in FIGS. 1B and 1C, the sheet indicator 240 is formed of a link stem 242 and an L-shaped link stem 244. One end of the link stem 242 forms the pointer 242a. One end 244a of the L-shaped link stem 244 contacts with an uppermost sheet, and the other end 244b of the L-shaped link stem 244 is coupled with the other end 242b of the link stem 242.
Japanese Patent Published Application No. Hei 11-35205 discloses a roll detector provided in an upper side of a printer for displaying residual quantity of roll paper. Japanese Patent Published Application No. Hei 11-11743 discloses an end sensor which contacts with an uppermost sheet to detect imminent out of paper.
The above sheet indicator might intervene the refill of sheets into the tray 220, so that the sheets are required to be refilled, while avoiding the sheet indicator 240. In addition, since the sheet indicator 240 is positioned beside the side face of the tray 200, a width of the tray 220 needs to be extended by the length occupied by the sheet indicator 240. Furthermore, since the sheet indicator 240 is disposed alongside the stacked sheets, it is difficult for a user to easily confirm the pointer 242a positioned near the side end of the tray 220.